Let’s try: Free from pancakes

If you thought all the previous Let’s tries were full of sweet sweet goodness that made you the happiest little kitten in the world – wait for this one. Ladies and gentleman, I present to you: a free from pancakes weekend.

Yeah, I know, I know, Pancake Day is long gone, but if you are anything like me, every day is a pancake day of a sort; or every second day. Can you even imagine a world without them? All of those rom com breakfast in bed that don’t really happen anywhere else – just gone! Without pancakes there is no romance, I’m telling you.

What about free from pancakes though? That is a tricky question. I often find them a bit… on the odd side to say the least. Most recipes deliver an awkward semi-state between pancakes and waffles at the very best. It seems as if without gluten and dairy and eggs, pancakes just don’t work that well.

Today I am on a mission to find free from pancakes (or crepes, I do cheat a bit) that actually do taste like pancakes. As always, I’ll be testing out recipes I have pinned and giving my honest opinion on the result.

Vegan Pancakes by Florian (Contentedness Cooking)

We’re starting with a traditional, vegan pancake recipe – GF flour, milk and oil. Usually I would avoid recipes like this, since I have done enough of them to know that no matter how well presented they are by the author, at the end of the day they all come out to be these waffle/pancake mixes.

But the ones Florian prepared looked just so… fluffy. As so many other people I am very much an eating with my eyes kind of person. I just couldn’t resist.

The recipe is on the easy and quick side; which is always appreciated. I always find myself stuck for hours with some free from recipes, either in the shops looking for awkward ingredients or in the kitchen, doing a million things at a time. And being stuck is not something I want to do first thing in the morning.

Just mix everything together and fry – easy peasy, right? And as Florian promises in his blog post, the batter spreads perfectly into the moulds and cookie cutters and – most importantly – doesn’t stick to them, which allows us to create pancakes in all shapes and forms.

There is a disappointing side to the recipe, though. At the end of the day it was just a vegan pancake. Yes, it was way fluffier than the ones I had eaten before, which is very much appreciated, but there was just something… off about it.

It is my personal taste, though. If you do like this very specific feel the most vegan pancakes share, then it is a must-go-for: the batter is just so much better with the addition of tapioca starch. It doesn’t break, it doesn’t stick, it holds a great shape and there is so much you can do with it!

Perfectly heart-shaped! For a full ingredients list and step-by-step recipe, visit Contentedness Cooking.

Thank you, Florian, for this recipe! If you are interested in vegan cooking and baking, you should give Florian’s blog, Contentedness Cooking, a go. He specializes in minimalistic recipes with short ingredient lists and easy steps to follow – just the way I like it!

Oil Free Pancakes by Iosune (Simple Vegan Blog)

I never used to bake and cook much with banana in it, as I live in a house with a true bananaphobe, but since trying the delicious donut recipe I discovered in last month’s Let’s try, I just cannot go past one and not try it. Iosune’s recipe just had to be tested out.

I had great hopes with this one not only because of the bananas. It was simply different. Oil-free pancakes? Aren’t we not meant to substitute eggs with oil all the time? How would it work without it?

Let me tell you how: delicious.

Ok, I admit: I did not use oat flour. I never do. The taste of oats, although I do eat porridge almost every day, in baking makes me at the very least disgusted. So my version of these pancakes may not be the most true to the recipe and might have contained some brown rice flour, but…

They were fluffy! And didn’t taste like waffles at all! I am still shocked that it actually happened. Sure, it came with some disadvantages, such as the fact that they didn’t enjoy being fried in the cookie cutters and stuck to them horribly, but, I swear, it was definitely worth it.

Despite all that hope, I was a bit worried as to how they would turn out. In the original photos they looked a bit… raw inside? But since I did mine a bit on the thinner side (fat and dense pancakes were never my style), I had absolutely no problem with it.

No, I do not have an unhealthy panda obession. For a full ingredients list and step-by-step recipe, visit Simple Vegan Blog.

Thank you, Iosune, for this recipe! If you’d like to learn more about quick, vegan cooking, check out Iosune’s and Alberto’s blog, Simple Vegan Blog.

Chocolate Hazelnut Crepes by Izy (Top with Cinnamon)

Can anyone resist chocolate? I cannot. The chocolate spread on Izy’s crepes caused me to pick them and although I did not end up making any of the recommended fillings (I wanted to give all the pancakes a fair go, so I ate them with the same chocolate spread I use every day), I am bound to come back to test it.

Same as Izy, I have always been a fluffy pancake kind of girl; yet I do hold lots of precious memories when it comes to having a good, old crepe. Mostly from my days of not being gluten-free: at the end of countless music festivals I would attend, we would always go to a crepe food truck and have them with tons of chocolate and cherries. So let me say – the bar was high for this one.

I have never used gram flour in anything other than falafels (which reminds me – we do need a good falafels Let’s try, don’t we?), so I was really excited to try it in crepes. And I must admit – what a great choice it was! Not only did the crepes not turn out in the weird, grayish brown they tend to after buckwheat flour, the batter was very pleasant to work with – and did not break apart at all.

They tasted very much like crepes too. I am pretty sure as a base they could go with any kind of filling – from the spiciest to the sweetest. They did not have a distinct dessert or savoury feel about them.

The only regret I had was not adding the coconut sugar. I thought I’d give it a go without, you know, stick to the cinnamon taste but it was not quite enough for a sweet tooth like me. Yet this can be easily amended in the future, can’t it?

What does chocolate go best with? Passion fruit, of course. For a full ingredients list and step-by-step recipe, visit Top with Cinnamon.

Thank you, Izy, for this recipe! If you feel like a bit of culinary experimentation, check out Izy’s blog, Top with Cinnamon.

Vegan Gluten Free Crepes by Ella (Pure Ella)

And there comes time for savoury, too. Savoury pancakes are not something I do often; and when I do, they contain mostly spinach and garlic sauce (is there a better combo around?), so I wanted to give some a try. In the end I did not end up filling them up in a particularly savory way, but… But I tried!

Good intentions matter, right?

This is a very simple recipe, also using gram flour as a base. There isn’t really anything to it other than that; simplicity in its purest form. Yet the crepe batter handles really well and it didn’t cause me any trouble whatsoever. Sometimes simple solutions just work best, don’t they?

When it comes to the taste though, this is a true savoury pancake. It just doesn’t go with sweet. This, of course, is not a bad thing – it was never intended to, was it? Just giving you a heads up, if you do want to put chocolate in it. Don’t.

I ended up making a quick savoury filling for it, to give it a fair chance, and I must say: it is a very good base for those sort of dishes if that is what one wants. It doesn’t fit my eating habits, true, but it is nonetheless a very good recipe worth giving a go.

Kiwis may look good on photos, but should probably be saved for a different recipe. Go with spinach, people! For a full ingredients list and step-by-step recipe, visit Pure Ella.

Thank you, Ella, for the recipe! If you are interested in cutting sugar out of your life and stay plant-based on top of that, check out Ella’s blog, Pure Ella.

A little bonus: How do I make my pancakes?

Usually I do not bother you with my own recipes (they are not great), but since I could not find anything similar to this one, I thought I’d share with you a little trick I learnt from my dad.

Not many people have ever heard of it probably, but millet is one of the best things to make pancakes from! All it requires it to soak it overnight (or for at least 4 hours), then pour all the excess water out, blend it and… voila! You can add any spices (I recommend cinnamon and turmeric – it helps make them a radiant yellow, which is waaaaay better than grayish brown in my book), sugar (or maple syrup, or honey, or sweetener, or…) or more water for better consistency if needed, but that is literally all the work you need to put in to them.

I have this annoying habit of eating cold pancakes without any toppings. I say annoying, as I swear that is what used to annoy my mother most when I still lived with her. She’d put all this work into making the pancakes and I’d just eat one, and leave the others hanging around for the entire day, only popping into the kitchen to grab myself one from time to time.

And this free from pancake recipe does it for me. Sure, it is far from the classic pancake taste which could be obtained with Iosune’s one, but it is healthy, and easy, and perfect to just nomm on throughout the day.

If you want to give it a try – I usually go for 300g of millet at time, but all the ingredients quantities are improvised anyway, since it is all about seasoning really.

Enjoy!

Know a good free from pancakes recipe? Please feel free to share it with me in the comments down below. Don’t want to miss my next post? Follow me on Bloglovin’ for automated updates. See you on Wednesday!